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France Wants EU to Give ‘Greater Powers’ to ESMA in Overseeing Crypto: Report

France proposed the change as part of a package of reforms to strengthen financial regulation across Europe.

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 1:24 p.m. Published Jul 13, 2021, 6:22 p.m.

French regulators have suggested European Union governments give responsibility to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in overseeing cryptocurrencies, according to a Financial Times report.

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France proposed the change Tuesday as part of a package of reforms to strengthen financial regulation across Europe by giving “greater powers” to the EU's Paris-based, securities markets regulator, ESMA.
“Granting ESMA the power of direct supervision of public offers of cryptoassets in the EU and of cryptoasset service providers would create obvious economies of scale for all national supervisors and concentrate expertise in an efficient way, for the common European benefit,” said the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), France’s markets regulator.
“The aim of these proposals is to endow ESMA with a greater role in order to achieve harmonized, unified supervision, ensuring a level playing field while minimizing the possibility of regulatory arbitrage,” the AMF said in a statement.
ESMA did not respond to CoinDesk's request for comment by press time.

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Tanzeel Akhtar

Tanzeel Akhtar has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes Africa, Financial Times, The Street, Citywire, Investing.com, Euromoney, Yahoo! Finance, Benzinga, Kitco News, African Business Magazine, Hedge Week, Campden Family Office, Modern Investor, Spear's Wealth Management Magazine, Global Investor, ETF.com, ETF Stream, CIO UK, Funds Global Asia, Portfolio Institutional, Interactive Investor, Bitcoin Magazine, CryptoNews.com, Bitcoin.com, The Local, The Next Web, Mining Journal, Money Marketing, Marketing Week and more. Tanzeel trained as a foreign correspondent at the University of Helsinki, Finland and newspaper journalist at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She holds a BA (Honours) in English Literature from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and completed a semester abroad as an ERASMUS student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is NCTJ Qualified - Media Law, Public Administration and passed the Shorthand 100WPM with distinction. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.